The Folding Knife seems to be set in the same world as The Engineer Trilogy, and possibly around the same time, but in a different part of the world. Set entirely in the city-state of Vesani, it focuses on the life and career of Basso, a man who grows up to be a banker and eventually the First Citizen (equivalent to a President) of the City. This is not a story of action and adventure, but of finance and politics, and yet somehow it manages to not be boring.

The interesting twist to the story is that Basso is a lucky man and things almost always go his way, but he can't really be described as living a charmed existence. A tragedy early on in the book ruins his relationship with his beloved sister, and throughout the story, he suffers other setbacks. In almost every situation, he prevails through a combination of luck, careful planning, and charismatic speeches. Naturally, he eventually becomes convinced that he cannot fail, and part of the enjoyment is the reader waiting to see just how and when his downfall comes about.

My main disappointment with The Folding Knife is that I didn't find it to be as dense-but-not-dense as The Engineer Trilogy. I loved how those books took forever to read, without being hard to comprehend or overly wordy. This one feels a little lighter. Maybe it's because it only follows one character, maybe it's because there's not as many intricately interwoven plots, maybe this book simply isn't as good an example of Parker's writing style. That's not to say that it's bad, it's actually very good, it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

I still love this sort of non-magical fantasy, with more focus on characters and intrigue than spells and adventure. It feeds that cynical side of me that sometime can't suspend disbelief and accept more absurd forms of magic and technology. And it also serves as something of a palette cleanser, so that conflicting magic systems and interchangeable reluctant heroes don't start to get mixed up in my brain. I definitely recommend it to any fantasy lover looking for a change from a steady diet of sword and sorcery epics and/or urban fantasy.